AREAS OF EXPERTISE:

Valerie Nesset has extensive experience in designing information
technologies with children, helping to develop Bonded Design, a
model for working together in intergenerational design teams.
Through this experience she gained knowledge in the areas of
usability, interface design, knowledge organization and system
design.

Her current research advances understanding of the intersection
of information-seeking behavior and information literacy
instruction with an emphasis on process to encourage problem
solving and critical thinking, especially among elementary school
students.

To achieve this objective, she uses qualitative methods to
investigate how young users seek, retrieve, evaluate and use
information, regardless of format. Recently, she has designed
a model she calls Beginning, Acting, Telling (BAT) that depicts the
research process in a child-friendly and holistic manner; the model
has been designed to be used both inside and outside the
classroom.

CONTACT:

Valerie M. Nesset, PhDAssociate Professor
Department of Library and Information Studies University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education